The Santa Klaus Murder

by Mavis Doriel Hay

  I couldn’t picture Grace Portisham embarking on that sort of trick, but, of course, she might have a needy and avid family in the background who would force her into it.

  I had been so absorbed in working out the implications of the will and the notes, that I had forgotten the tea and I began to apologize to Crewkerne, when I saw that he had quietly poured out a cup for himself. In fact, I suspected from the lightness of the teapot that he had manged to drink one and pour out a second whilst I was occupied with making notes and calculations.

  I now had all the information I wanted from the will and I handed it back to Crewkerne, asking him whether he would have to read out the notes when he read the will.

  “No; they do not properly belong to the will. But any of them has a right to look at the will, and you can count on them rushing at it. People always do! They seem to think I must have made mistakes in the figures or that they’ll find a sentence or two I haven’t noticed.” He chuckled dryly.

  I heard the telephone bell ring and a few moments later the bell of the extension in my study told me it was my call. I had had a message telephoned to Flaxmere as soon as I reached home to tell Rousdon where he could find me.

  When I picked up the receiver I was deafened by a loud buzzing, through which filtered faintly some confused chatter from the exchange. The instrument had been working abominably on Christmas Day and the news of Sir Osmond’s death had made me forget to report the trouble. It was still just as bad. At last I caught Rousdon’s voice repeating peevishly, “Are you there? Hallo! Hallo!”

  When I answered, he announced distinctly, “Remember what you said about gents’ gloves? Well, the owner has been so incredibly foolish! And still more so. I’ve got him here safe!”

  There was a good deal more indistinct talk overwhelmed by a loud buzzing from the telephone. I could make out nothing except that Rousdon was taking Witcombe to the police station and there was no need for me to go over to Flaxmere to see either of them. I told Rousdon to send me some information by Kenneth Stour who, I gathered, was still in the house and who would pass by our gates on his way back to the Tollards. I said he could trust Kenneth, which he answered by a snort.

  I arranged for Bingham to drive Crewkerne back to Bristol and ordered the chauffeur to return straight back to Flaxmere after that. I didn’t see what harm he could do; he couldn’t have foreseen that he would be left alone and he had been watched while he was getting the car out—a precaution of which I was now glad, for I believed there was something hidden at Flaxmere which I hoped to find before long.

  As I was seeing Crewkerne off, my wife came into the hall. I told her that I was expecting Kenneth Stour and wanted to see him alone in the study.

  “Kenneth Stour—that’s the young man who used to come here a lot, years ago, isn’t it? Yes, of course I remember him; charming smile! Quite a famous actor now, isn’t he? And—yes—I saw him for a moment at the Tollards, just before Christmas; it was on Monday and Dittie Evershot was there too.”

  “Dittie? Are you sure?” I questioned.

  “Of course I am! I’ve known Dittie since before she was married to that frightful man. I thought she’d aged terribly; she’s got such a hard look now and she can’t be much over thirty. Poor Dittie! You know, she’s much nicer than you’d ever think if you didn’t know her well. She’s always been very shut up inside herself. There was talk of an affair between her and Kenneth Stour once; she probably ought to have married him, but, like most of that family, she was too fond of money and he had none then.”

  I began to wish I could discuss the Melbury case with my wife. I only asked her whether Sir David was at the Tollards, on Monday.

  “No, I’m sure he wasn’t. But I didn’t stay long; I only called to take some presents for the children. Dittie wasn’t staying there, you know; she had driven over from Flaxmere, I think. Ask young Stour to lunch or to dine or something; I do like the way he smiles at one, as if one were the only person in the world! I expect he does it to everyone, but I enjoy it just the same.”

  I thought all this over. I had asked Kenneth when he turned up so unexpectedly at Flaxmere how he knew that Dittie was there and he had avoided the obvious reply that he had seen her on Monday. I had let him come poking about in this case because I knew him and because—as my wife would have said—he has a way with him. But I began to feel uneasy.

  I rang up Max Tollard, whom I knew well, to ask him if he could provide Kenneth with a good alibi for Christmas Day. I made light of the matter, suggesting that as Kenneth was running in and out of Flaxmere it was only right to inquire about his movements as we had done about those of everyone in the house. Tollard was quite sure that Kenneth had been with them all the afternoon and evening. His wife and daughters and several guests could swear to that, he said. “He’s very discreet,” Tollard added. “We can’t get a thing out of him and I suppose I mustn’t ask you, but this is a ghastly affair for the Melburys, and I shall be thankful when I hear that you’ve cleared it up.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Fight with Fire-Irons

  by Col. Halstock

  It was nearly dinner-time when Kenneth arrived at Twaybrooks, primed with a pretty complete account of the events of the afternoon at Flaxmere. Rousdon, elated by what had happened, had been quite expansive; Kenneth had collected further details from George and Carol and Witcombe himself and added some embroidery of his own. This was his story:

  Although Witcombe emerged pretty well from his interview with Rousdon in the morning, he had been worried. (“Of course he didn’t do it,” Kenneth commented; “and he doesn’t know who did.”) So he had nosed around during the afternoon, trying to pick up a clue of some sort (and perhaps looking for a chance to plant one) which would point the pursuit towards someone else. But Rousdon had set Mere to watch Witcombe and Kenneth himself was also keeping an eye on him. The household had been given permission to take the air on the gravel sweep in front of the house and the paved path under the windows on the study side, and here Witcombe prowled for a time. But there was Mere stolidly contemplating the view of the pool and there was Kenneth on the drive, polishing his windscreen or inspecting the early snowdrops. So at last Witcombe gave it up and returned to the hall with a harassed air.

  Mere skipped round by the back door and the back stairs and so reached the main staircase and took up a station on one of the branches that lead off at right angles from the first flight. Here he could peer down through the banisters into the hall. Witcombe didn’t notice him there and probably assumed that the constable’s vigilance had only been to prevent any funny business out of doors. Actually Mere was not only observing Witcombe in the hall but also guarding the stairs, whilst Constable Stapley searched Witcombe’s bedroom.

  Jenny, Miss Melbury, Miss Portisham and Philip were all busily engaged in their own rooms on what Kenneth calls their “homework” and most of the others were in the drawing-room, as Witcombe knew. He drew an armchair up to the fire in the hall and picked up a copy of the Tatler. After turning over the pages for a bit, he propped it up against the arm of his chair and then seemed to fumble in his breast-pocket. Mere couldn’t see exactly what happened behind the Tatler, which was doubtless intended as a screen against the eyes of anyone who might happen to enter the hall.

  Mere’s impression was that Witcombe drew out a pocket-book or wallet, extracted something and then replaced the wallet in his pocket. He gave a hasty glance round the hall. Mere was on tiptoe with expectation and after that he ventured a stair or two lower. Witcombe picked up a poker and stirred the fire, which had been newly made up and was dull, until a flame shot up. At once Mere came bounding down the stairs. Witcombe heard him, lost his head, and snatched at the thing he had taken from his wallet, which turned out to be a sheet of notepaper. He fumbled it, because the Tatler had fallen on to it, but he did manage to crumple the paper and hurl it, with part of a leaf of the Tatler, into the fire, n
ot very accurately. By that time Mere was upon him, seized the tongs and raked frantically at the paper. A whole lot of the fire fell out on to the hearth, and some of it scattered on to the floor.

  Witcombe still held the poker and he swiped with it at Mere, a tall hefty man, who parried with the tongs and yelled for help. The two of them grappled and rolled on the floor. George came rushing out of the drawing-room, followed by others; Patricia stood at the door and screamed; Rousdon dashed out of the library and Stapley from upstairs. Kenneth himself heard the shout from the drive and ran in, in time to see Witcombe on the floor in the grip of George and Rousdon whilst Mere, who had extricated himself, rolled over rather ludicrously towards the fireplace and began routing with the tongs among the litter of coals and cinders.

  The thick shiny paper of the Tatler, which didn’t burn easily, had protected the other piece of paper; it had caught at one edge and smouldered, but part of it was rescued. This fragment of a note in Sir Osmond’s handwriting—identified by George and others—had been sealed up in an envelope by Rousdon and was now handed to me by Kenneth.

  A note from Rousdon enclosed with the charred piece of paper ran: I assume this refers to the will. Can the last name be Witcombe’s?

  Witcombe cooled down on the floor, in the grip of George and Rousdon, and when he was allowed to get up he went off quite meekly into the library, only protesting that “that great lout rushed at me like a mad elephant and attacked me with the tongs.”

  Stapley returned to his search of Witcombe’s room and before long he came down triumphantly with the fellow to the glove which Bingham had picked up in the library. He had found this prize in a drawer of the dressing-table, pushed to the back and under some handkerchiefs, but not very effectively hidden.

  The two gloves were shown to Witcombe and he was asked if they were his. Quite calmly he agreed that they looked like a pair he had with him at Flaxmere; in fact, he pointed out his initials, O.W., neatly marked inside them. He wanted to know where they had been found and what they had to do with the case? Rousdon asked if he could account for the fact that one had been found hidden in the library.

  “Now, look here,” Witcombe declared. “I can’t account for anything more. You really mustn’t expect me to solve all your little problems, especially this one of why someone has been monkeying with my gloves.” (Witcombe himself had later repeated this speech to Kenneth). “If you’re still harping on that cracker business, send for Miss Wynford. She can tell you that when I left Sir Osmond and went out of the hall I didn’t go back, because I stood talking to her in the passage for some minutes.”

  Carol was sent for and arrived to find Witcombe facing Rousdon, a bit pale but quite composed. They were eyeing each other warily, she said, as if each was looking for a chance to grapple.

  Rousdon asked him sternly what he had to say to Carol.

  Witcombe looked a bit embarrassed. “Carol,” he said, “do you mind telling Inspector Rousdon what I did when I went through the door from the hall into the back passage on Christmas afternoon, in the Santa Klaus rig-out?”

  Carol got rather hot (her own confession) and said indignantly, “I don’t see how I can tell what you did!”

  Witcombe said, “It’s serious, Carol. Inspector Rousdon”— he glanced at Rousdon’s stony face—“thinks of accusing me of murdering your grandfather; of going back through the dining-room to murder him immediately after I went out into the passage and met you there.”

  “Oh! Well, of course—” Carol turned to Rousdon; “I know Mr. Witcombe didn’t go back to the study because I met him, as he says, in the back passage and I talked to him there for some minutes.”

  “You say you met him as he left the hall; please show me on this plan just where you met him,” Rousdon requested.

  Carol pointed to the passage into which the door at the back of the hall leads; to a spot, in fact, very near the gun-room door.

  “And how did you come to be there, Miss Wynford?” Rousdon asked her freezingly.

  “Oh, I’d been to Jennifer’s room to fetch something— a cigarette case, which I’d left there.”

  It was, of course, just outside the door of Jennifer’s own little room that Carol claimed to have met Witcombe.

  “And how do you know that when you met Mr. Witcombe he hadn’t already come out of the hall once, returned with the crackers and come out a second time?” (According to accounts of course, Witcombe had not gone out by that door on the second occasion, after the cracker business, but Rousdon was setting a trap—or two traps, as I guessed. Witcombe did not fall into it by exclaiming, “But I didn’t go out that way the second time!” as Rousdon doubtless hoped he would).

  “I’m sure that was the first time Mr. Witcombe came out,” Carol insisted.

  “How can you be sure?”

  Carol considered her answer. “Why, of course, the crackers hadn’t begun when he came out of the hall. I’m sure of that, because I heard the first one, very loud, a few minutes later, and it made me jump. You remember that, don’t you?” she appealed to Witcombe.

  “Yes, of course,” he agreed. “You know, I haven’t got frightfully good hearing and I didn’t notice the cracker, but I did notice Miss Wynford jump. I remember it now quite well.”

  “You mean to tell me,” Rousdon asked her very deliberately, “that you heard the first cracker go off while you were actually talking to Mr. Witcombe in the passage?”

  Carol agreed.

  “And why,” Rousdon demanded, “when we asked you yesterday evening to tell us what you were doing all that afternoon, did you not mention this little excursion?”

  “Well, we were all very upset and I really didn’t think of it at the time. I didn’t know it was important.”

  “But you were asked where you were and you didn’t mention going out into that passage. You must have realized that that was important; you knew, for one thing, that the gun-room is there and that the pistol came from the gun-room.”

  “I never thought about the gun-room,” Carol replied. “I don’t suppose I’ve ever been into it. Why should I remember a thing like going to fetch my handbag?”

  “Your cigarette case, I thought it was?”

  “Of course, the cigarette case was in the handbag; it was because of the cigarette case that I wanted the bag.”

  “If you had been waiting for Mr. Witcombe at that door you would know, of course, that he hadn’t been out of it before?” Rousdon suddenly suggested.

  Carol said she had been a bit taken aback; “he jumped at me so”; but she had replied that if Mr. Witcombe had gone out earlier she would have seen him while she was still in the hall. She had come out of the library and left him there, waiting about, she said; then she wanted a cigarette and went out of the door at the back of the hall to Jenny’s room, where she had left her case. She hadn’t seen Mr. Witcombe again after leaving him in the library, until she had been to Jenny’s room and was returning to the hall, when he came out through the door into the passage. “I’ll swear to that,” Carol had said.

  “I hope, Miss Wynford,” said Rousdon nastily, “that you would be prepared to take your oath, if necessary, on everything you have just told me.”

  Carol agreed to this.

  Then, “in that horrid, sudden way of his,” Rousdon asked Witcombe, “How long did you talk to Miss Wynford in the passage?”

  “Oh, really I don’t know; a few minutes perhaps, not very long, because I had to go on to the servants’ hall with the presents.”

  “And what did you talk about?” Rousdon snapped at Carol.

  “Oh, nothing in particular; just how things were working out and whether it would all go off all right.” Carol complained afterwards that “Inspector Rousdon seemed to think that suspicious, but it was quite natural really; everyone was a bit jumpy about the Santa Klaus plan and afraid it would lead to a scene of some sort with grandfa
ther, and people must have said a hundred times during that afternoon, “Seems to be going all right?”

  The upshot of all this was that Inspector Rousdon had insisted that Witcombe must go off with him in the police car to Wellbridge police station and make a statement about the gloves and the scrap of paper. I think Rousdon’s idea was that this procedure would overawe Witcombe and he would confess to something.

  “And that’s that!” said Kenneth. “I hope Witcombe won’t lose his head again; I advised him to say nothing but the truth and not too much of that, and if he is charged with the murder to say nothing at all except that he’s not guilty and wants to see his solicitor.”

  “You advised him!” I gasped. “Are you helping the police or are you acting as detective-adviser to the accused?”

  “Witcombe isn’t accused of anything yet, so far as I know; if he has been charged with anything it’s probably assault,” Kenneth pointed out; “I advised him merely out of the kindness of my heart, as a fellow man. He can’t tell you anything helpful, I’m sure of that. The poor chap is simply puzzled. If he’s driven into a corner and tries to explain things, he’ll simply make up a lot of stuff that’ll confuse everybody.”

  I asked him if he had any plan of action in his mind.

  “Wait!” he advised. “We shall get the eyewitness accounts to-morrow and those will give us something to work on. Also I think that something will happen; I feel sure it will.”

  I was afraid he had planned some devilment, but he assured me that he had done nothing all day but talk to people and hang about and think.